09022003
I have been negligent over the past many weeks. I should have done more on this net site yet I have not. Today I went looking into Sons of Norway net sites. I know more than one does exist as many lodges have their own.
Sons of Norway are organized into many different units. I will not say what those are as I am unclear on how much SofN want this data known. All I will tell you is I have located the USA unit I am in by residence. I stress “Residence” as I am not yet a member at this time. It is good to know that not one yet two (to) lodges are near me within 90 miles in two directions.
My take
Each unit has many lodges in it with all lodges dedicated to working towards helping the unit with each unit working towards the common goals. I see it much like an army. 6 persons will form a squad. Two squads plus 2 form a platoon. 4 platoons plus X others form a company. 4 companies plus X others form a Regiment. And so on it goes. My army numbers may be wrong so please do not take it as guaranteed correct. This sort of organization does work.
I am planning on resuming my language lessons proper soon. I think I shall get into what SofN calls chapter 17 or sekten soon. Just because I may be ready to start a chapter as organized by SofN does not mean I am really ready for that chapter. I am skipping around a bit as my curiosity dictates. Also I am using more than one source in my attempt to teach myself Norwegian. As I go back to some chapters, I find that I know or at least I think I know what stuff is. And some of the Norsk net sites in Norsk make more sense. This is IMO a truer test of how well I am learning Norsk.
09042003
I spent more than a small time further exploring Sons of Norway. I admit I spent most of it looking into various individual lodges that are net aware. I am know possessing 2 of the # known units net sites for USA based SofN. I almost had 3 of them yet the one site was null and void for unknown reason(s). Some of these lodges are literally the elders only AFAIK based on displayed gifs and /or jpegs.
SofN Financial
I know that SofN does take contributions as well as membership sign ups online. It is definitely possible that I may make a contribution(s) in the future. Membership is expected to be too high for my budget. I will look into it later.
Norsk Language Tutors
Some of you might remember how I stated no tutors existed inside an acceptable distance for me. Leave it to SofN to correct that problem as 2 potential tutors now live within acceptable distance. What remains is whether or not my budget will allow me to even consider hiring one of these persons to act as a tutor. And I must be able to fit the tutor into my sometimes crazy schedule. I view it as the schedule is a minor problem and the cash expenditure is the major problem. One of the possible tutors even just recently came from Norway into my extended general area. This tutor even promises to make learning Norsk fun. That is probably what I need. If one adds in the fact this is a bona fide Norwegian with a master’s degree in linguistics from a Norsk universitet (Norwegian University) I would hazzard this person might be my best hope if I take a tutor to successfully teach me Norwegian. The other person appears to offer Norsk language lessons and is closer to me therefore may be cheaper for me to hire. If I have the money and can arrange the time, I think I would prefer the native Norsk as implied data suggests much more current knowledge of Norway would be possessed. However, the other one has some background data that might make it easier for me to learn Norwegian as we have some small pieces of common background data. It is a toss up when one gets right down into it.
Lodges
I found several SofN lodges today. One of them, Henrik Ibsen Lodge, has some Scandinavian jokes on it. I find a great many to be ROTFL or even FACROFL material. If you are into Scandinavian jokes, you should go read some. The potential downside is the brunt of some of these jokes are Svenske which may or may not be nice. I suspect there are plenty of Scandinavian jokes where Norsk are the joke victims.
One lodge located in Bergen, Norway as far as I can tell has the text in both Norsk and Engelsk. I plan on using both as I learn Norwegian. This lodge Sons of Norway, Bergen Lodge; Hjem
will be quite helpful when I am further along in my studies. The site is done in frames or main section with sidebar. It has one entry on the sidebar I can not help (hjelp) translating immediately as it is so obvious...”St. Valentines dag” which should be real easy. “Lodger I Norge” which is Norwegian Lodges more or less. May 17th or 17 Mai is some sort of major holiday event in Bergen if not all Norway. It might be this one event I saw multiple times. The event if I grasped it correctly is Norwegian Constitution Day or Syttende Mai. Thus Norwegian Constitution Day / Syttende Mai / May 17 / 17 Mai may all be the same day.
A separate event, Holmenkollen Day, which gets celebrated in March near or around Oslo, Norway is a mystery to me at this time. The Norwegian form of day is dag. Please do be careful as Dag pronounced Doug in English() can be a guy’s name. I know this as I know 1 Dag personally as well as interact on infrequent basis with 2 others.
09052003
I found some more new Norsk net sites.
02) http://www.vikingfest.com/ Viking Fest - Nordic Celebration in Texas
03) www.norphoto.com Norphoto: Bilder fra Norge - Hjem (Norsk and English)
04) http://www.aftenposten.no/ Aftenposten Nettutgaven (Norsk Newspaper)
05) Sons of Norway - Washington Lodge (*4)
06) [ Mixed ] http://www.tubfrim.no/ Tubfrim
[Norsk] http://www.tubfrim.no/norsk/normain.html
[Engelsk] http://www.tubrim.no/english/mainengl.html
07) SofN Unit X page (*1)
08) http://www.faqs.org/faqs/nordic-faq/ FAQ’s org
I did look into Sons of Norway membership fees. They are much lower than I thought. I can do $35. What may not be as easy is the time requirements. It is one thing to teach yourself via books, computer courses, and internet Norwegian and something else to join an organization that is geared towards everything Norwegian. If I joined, I would need to have no less than four (fire) hours per month which may be a problem by my estimation. I am going to take another look at those lodges I found near me on the appropriate net sites. If I find a “Velkommen til oss” or “Velkommen til nett hjem” type message on the net site, I will consider dropping in for the business section only part. Many SofN lodges have their meetings in two parts. Part one is the business section. Part two is a potluck style meal frequently dinner or supper. The lodges appear to differ on which is first. I will not bother considering going to one with supper first for personal and practical reasons. The Washington lodge has a “Velkommen til oss hjem” message they call “For Prospective Members” which is the same general thing. I need to find this on a local lodge if I can.
With the latest page find, I now have 4 of the home pages hot listed(*2). New net site #2 reminds me that it is not Sons of Norway yet rather Sons of Norway International. I think that way as it is so the difference personally is absolutely minimal
0210 hours
I just looked at Washington Lodge prospective member page. I just about dropped onto the floor. They have what I would like access to. Life does give one curve balls at times.
“Kingdom of Norway Constitution Day Celebration - May 17, 2003" was found on a lodge net site. The lodge site I found this on is Sons of Norway Edvard Grieg Lodge. Thus my guess on Syttende Mai was correct. In American terms, think of this as you would July 4th or USA Independence Day. It appears it has that same general feeling for Norway, Norwegians, and Norwegian-Americans
Tre null en om natta [Grade C- reliability (My Norsk may be off or flat out wrong)]
I now have the net addies for all known units of the nordic order “Sons of Norway” now hot listed. What I will not do until I have a chat with them via a Scandinavian Faire or Festival is the following...
1. I will not release how many units there are.
2. I will not publish on my net site and /or release the URL’sfor these unit pages publicly.
3. I will not use any non common Norsk data from these net sites on mine. Syttende Mai, major Norwegian national events, many links found on these unit pages, and some other data is effectively public knowledge and thus can be released. I will not specify which unit page the data came from though other than a SofN page.
4. I will not put any obviously private data. Some of these net sites have some data I would have thought would have been kept offline. The people running these sites felt differently. This is likely to be permanently off limits for posting.
Post chat face to face may or may not result in limited to full release of the data I hold on SofN net sites. I see no pressing need to release this data at current time.
09062003
I have visited a great many SofN lodges. Most I have visited so far have no clear indication if non Norsk and non Norsk-Americansk are velkommen på neigh [ Intended= welcome or no (not)]. However, a few nowhere near have clear indications that anyone is welcome. One lodge I visited had this message “ANYONE interested in Scandinavian culture and heritage is welcome!” up on its site. That Washington had a similar message less direct as did another.
Thus it appears non Norsk and non Norsk-Americansk who are not members may be velkommen at some lodges during pre sign up phase while others lodges do not want to see you before committing. That is the impression I am getting. I will not make any sort of hasty call that this is the hard truth without considerable research into Sons of Norway [ Sønn av Norge (Is this correct ??)] . I think I will be creating a question list for discussion with Sons of Norway once face to face access via one of the upcoming festivals occurs.
I have found another 14 or so SofN lodges online. Considering the amount of lodges this is not a surprise to me. The modern day Norsk have a clear and definite friend when arriving here in America via Sons of Norway or Sönnen av Norge(*1) organization. While I was searching for more data on SofN, I found a sibling organization called appropriately enough, Daughters of Norway a.k.a. Datters av Norge.
What bothers me is the amount of implied “If you are not Norwegian or Norwegian American, we do not want you in our organization.” messages I am finding more and more on various net pages. I can understand this if it is true. Still I shall wait until after a face to face meeting before giving up that idea of myself possibly joining SofN. If it is true that SofN is open only to people with Norsk or Norsk-Amerikansk heritage, then I shall carry on independently. I shall do my own Norsk and Norsk-Amerikansk info gathering, notes, and studies. While it will be impossible to promote Norsk and Norsk-Amerikansk heritage on par with SofN or DofN, I shall do what I can. I am contemplating removing all individual SofN lodge links. I may do this so I can maximize my chances for not angering SofN. I may create two pages...One would be private with all the links I want on it which would not get seen via datamaskin med internett. And the public page which would be severely limited in URL’s I place which would go on the net.
About the Norsk 17 Mai or Syttende Mai, I have discovered that Syttende means 17. Since the Norsk language sources I am using did not mention this, I assume I have either not gone far enough or that this is possibly a Norwegian form I know nothing about. I know that Norwegian has more than one form...Norsk(Bøkmål), Norsk(NyNorsk), and one other form exist that I know about; I remember seeing it on a Norsk page which may have been a SofN page for a lodge in Norway.
Language lessons shall resume this coming week if time allows. I have other things I need doing. And I can definitely state my interest in things Norsk has been expanded substantially.
If you are interested in teaching yourself Norwegian I do suggest this section on Sons Of Norway site... http://199.86.66.9/norwegianculture/languagelessons/index.html If you are like me, you will want this available offline as well. If this is true, I suggest you look into html ebook compilers. An HTML Ebook compiler(*2) will take html code as from a net site and turn it or them into a self displaying electronic book or eBook. I have done so with the lessons I got off SofN net site so I can view them anytime I have computer access with or without net access.
09072003
After a little thinking, I have decided to remove all URL’s from this page about the various SofN lodges I have found. I also did remove the lodge numbers so it would harder to track them down as I did. I find the idea that all lodges have not been made public knowledge on the official site a tell tale sign that SofN does not want non members knowing anything about where their lodges are. I could be wrong.
09052003 notes
1: I can not find any unit location pages on the main SofN site. I therefore must assume for now that “Sons of Norway” would rather if people did not have that data freely available. Even though I have no information suggesting anyone is reading my site(*3), I shall play nice for the immediate future.
2: Opera has its stored URL’s (Universal Resource Locators) stored as a “Hot List” which is the equivalent of Firebird/Mozilla/Netscape Bookmarks.
3: No one has sent me any mail about my net site. It is possible I am spending many hours writing for a net site that no one, absolutely no one, reads. If I do not receive a an email soon enough say 90 days about this net site, I may start releasing the data as a simple fact remains; If no one reads this site, why should I protect data that may or may not be wanted as general knowledge by its parent? I know of an upcoming Scandinavian Festival in my general area coming fairly soon. It is quite likely that SofN will be there. If so, I shall ask them about their net sites. If not or I want the answer sooner, I could wait until an event I know they will be present at occurs and /or email them. The one problem with email is I tried sending them an email (specific district) as I found a net link goof and the email bounced. [ “Permanent Failure: 550_Administrative_prohibition” ] which I do not understand. My best guess is the account is under administrative lockdown for some offense. The alternate best guess is my ISP has been declared a spammer haven by this email addy ISP with a blacklist in effect.
I could add a counter to the Norsk section as I think I know when one can be had for free. If the number stays very low, there would be no need for me to establish increase privacy and /or security for these pages. If I, an American interested in things Norwegian, can find them so can others with equal or superior desire and time.
4: This lodge is another one with clear implied “Please visit us. We would like to show you what we do. “ message on its lodge net site. I view this as a good sign.
09062003 notes
1: I got this Norsk of a Sons of Norway lodge net page. I seriously doubt any SofN lodge will have incorrect Norsk on their net page.
2: I used Sbook Builder which lacks many of the nicer bells and whistles yet does the job. It is freeware.
09##2003 notes